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In this Jan. 28, 2011 photo, BP PLC oil spill fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg, left, speaks with Thomas Dardar, chief of the United Houma Nation American Indian tribe, before a town hall meeting for oil spill claimants in Montegut, La. Even before oil Patrick Semansky, Associated Press
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In this Jan. 28, 2011 photo, Price Billiot stands on his fishing dock in the American Indian fishing village of Pointe-Aux-Chenes, La., where Billiot says he's surviving for now, thanks in part to $65,000 in emergency oil spill payments he received from B Patrick Semansky, Associated Press
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In this Jan. 28, 2011 photo, Herdis Neil, whose family members belong to the Biloxi-Chitimacha American Indian tribe, speaks with BP PLC oil spill fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg, foreground, about his grandchildren's claims during a town hall meeting Patrick Semansky, Associated Press
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In this Jan. 28, 2011 photo, an abandoned fishing boat is seen sitting on the bank of a bayou past seafood dock owner Price Billiot in the American Indian fishing village of Pointe-Aux-Chenes, La., where Billiot says he's surviving for now, thanks in part Patrick Semansky, Associated Press
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In this Jan. 28, 2011 photo, a fisherman navigates his boat near docks on a bayou in the American Indian fishing village of Pointe-Aux-Chenes, La. Even before oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico last spring, Louisiana's American Indian fishing villa Patrick Semansky, Associated Press
By Associated Press

MONTEGUT, La. — Even before oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico last spring, Louisiana's American-Indian fishing villages were on the brink of collapse because of social change and the dramatic loss of coastal wetlands.

Now, Indians who've known nothing but fishing all their lives find their futures tied to the man handing out checks for damages, paid from a multibillion-dollar fund started after the spill.

Kenneth Feinberg, who's in charge of BP PLC's $20 billion compensation fund, met with them for the first time Friday on the back bayous of south Louisiana at a gymnasium in Montegut, about an hour and a half from New Orleans. The fishermen want Feinberg to compensate them not just for lost wages, but a way of life that relied on the bounty of the marshes and now is in jeopardy.

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